Dr. Julia Engstrom-Melnyk is a Scientific Affairs Manager within Medical and Scientific Affairs for Roche Diagnostics Corporation, supporting two geographic territories and serving as the scientific and clinical HPV subject matter expert for the U.S. In these roles, she has collaborated with both North American and global colleagues on several high-profile projects and studies and has served as an invited speaker at both domestic and international conferences. Dr. Engstrom-Melnyk received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Delaware, discovering and developing gene therapy approaches to treat genetically-inherited disorders. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, her research explored signaling pathways following DNA damage and the biological processes of DNA repair.Dr. Julia Engstrom-Melnyk is a Scientific Affairs Manager within Medical and Scientific Affairs for Roche Diagnostics Corporation, supporting two geographic territories and serving as the scientific and clinical HPV subject matter expert for the U.S. In these roles, she has collaborated with both North American and global colleagues on several high-profile projects and studies and has served as an invited speaker at both domestic and international conferences. Dr. Engstrom-Melnyk received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Delaware, discovering and developing gene therapy approaches to treat genetically-inherited disorders. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, her research explored signaling pathways following DNA damage and the biological processes of DNA repair.

Abstract:

Date: Tuesday, February 10th, 2015Time: 9:00AM PST, 12:00PM EST

For the last 60 years the primary method of preventing cervical cancer in both the U.S. and Europe has been cervical cytology -- if it is negative, women are rescreen in three years and if positive, are referred to follow-up examinations. Although this strategy has led to a tremendous reduction in the incidence of cervical cancer, some significant limitations exist. Cytology has low sensitivity for cervical cancer pre-cursors, has low reproducibility, and does not adequately assess long-term risk. HPV testing added to cytology as a co-test for women 30 years and older increases the sensitivity of cytology and addresses many of its limitation, but also significantly contributes to the complexity of management. In 2014, the FDA approved the first hrHPV test for the use as a primary test for cervical cancer screening for women 25 years and older. More recently, interim guidance was co-published by the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) and the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP) on the use of primary hrHPV testing as an alternative to current US cytology-based cervical screening methods as it was found to provide greater reassurance of low CIN3+ risk than a negative cytology result. Additionally, due to the high prevalence of CIN3+ in women 25-29, for which cytology - the current standard of care - detected fewer than 50% of these cases, primary HPV testing could be imitated as early as age 25. Primary hrHPV screening is a significant scientific and clinical advance in cervical cancer screening as it provides improved reassurance of cancer risk following a negative result than cytology-based screening.